


Every Breath You Take

by TobyHansbmd



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: Also some spoilers for The Final Scene, Culprit Reveal, Dwayne is a stalker and he's good at it, Gen, Lots of other games get mentioned as well, Songfic, Spoilers, Stay Tuned for Danger, ransom of the seven ships, seriously major spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25267084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobyHansbmd/pseuds/TobyHansbmd
Summary: Once upon a time, he dreamed that he'd be a famous actor. Once upon a time, he'd have said that the very idea of his trying to kill a fellow actor and the teenage detective sent to save him would be ludicrous. Once upon a time, he'd thought of something other than revenge.Now, here he was, years later, looking back on those few weeks at World Wide Broadcasting Studios and planning revenge again. Apparently, old habits did die hard.He's been stalking her ever since he was released from prison. He knows about every case, every country and city she's visited since he last saw her. And his revenge is taking shape. As he prepares for the events to take place on Dread Isle, he reflects back on those days in New York, the actions that led to them, the months of betrayal, and the girl who ruined it all. And as he does, he can't help but sing."Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you..."
Kudos: 3





	Every Breath You Take

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! I'm back with another songfic. This is my second story in the Nancy Drew series, my first songfic for this fandom, and if you notice the title, it's a pretty popular song, "Every Breath You Take" by Sting and the Police. But so as not to break my pattern, because nearly all of my songfics is from either Celtic Woman or Celtic Thunder (yes, I'm a tad obsessed), it's only fair to say that my favorite cover is by Celtic Thunder's Ryan Kelly. I love the original cover as well, you can't beat it, but Ryan put his acting chops to work and becomes the bad boy with this song. I wish there were a video of it online, but Celtic Thunder has taken a lot of their content off YouTube in the last few years (presumably to sell more DVD's, but come on, YouTube is free advertising!), so I can't give you a link to it. I thought about posting a link to the audio of Ryan's cover, but it really doesn't work without the facial expressions and choreography. Since Ransom of the Seven Ships is pretty much about a culprit stalking Nancy and George and "Every Breath You Take" is the stalker's theme song, it served as really good inspiration for this story.
> 
> Anyway, back to the story itself. There is one thing I have to say before we continue:
> 
> MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! This story contains spoilers for Stay Tuned for Danger, The Final Scene, and Ransom of the Seven Ships. I know everyone in this fandom knows pretty much everything that goes on in these games anyway, but for those of you that haven't played these particular games (or watched Arglefumph's videos as the case may be), consider this your warning. If you know how the games go, then please enjoy the story!
> 
> This was originally posted on fanfiction.net and is now being moved over here after I've been meaning to do it for years. The story is the same, but I've corrected grammar and sentence structure mistakes, and I've fixed Dwayne's conversation with Mrs. Petrov to be in the past.
> 
> Happy reading!

If you had told Dwayne Powers twenty years earlier, when he was just getting finished with drama school, that he would end up as a washed up talent agent whose biggest client abandoned him, he would have laughed and said he would be a better agent than that.

If you had told him his only remaining client stuck with him because she was loyal and grateful to him, not because he got her good jobs, he would have said she was an angel, but he was still a better agent than that.

If you had told him he would threaten to get revenge on the so-called “big star” (because anyone with half a brain knew that Rick Arlen wasn’t even that good, even though he certainly thought he was) and send him death threat letters and a broken wristwatch, he would have said that would make a good plot for a script and he could play the lead.

If you had told him he would enact the threats and tamper with the lights on set, then plant a bomb in Rick Arlen’s dressing room (later on, he really wished he could take credit for the poisoned chocolates, and he cursed that “washed up director” for thinking of it first), he would have said you were crazy.

If you had told him that a teenage detective by the name of Nancy Drew had uncovered the whole plot and sent him to prison as he attempted to kill her and Lillian Weiss for their snooping (and gave a villain’s monologue accompanied by an evil laugh), then he would have really said you were crazy, because no way could he do anything as psychotic as that.

Now, here he was, years later, looking back on those few weeks at World Wide Broadcasting Studios and planning revenge again. Apparently, old habits did die hard.

He cast a disgruntled look around the little bungalow he was renting in upstate New York. The place wasn’t much, not like the luxurious penthouse he’d always imagined he’d be living in by this age, when he would be either a famous actor or the best talent agent in New York City; either way, he’d be able to afford more than just the rat’s nest he’d been living in after Rick Arlen dropped him. This was only a two-room cabin, combination living room/dining room/kitchen and a bedroom. Still, it was quiet, located close enough to a town that he could go and get supplies, but far enough away that no one would come bothering him, and he’d made it very clear to the townsfolk that he wished to be left alone. The one downside was that he’d had to choose another pseudonym and he’d been having issues getting used to it. It was a shame he couldn’t use Owen Spayder anymore, but that name had come out during his trial as evidence for the prosecution, making it far too dangerous to use again. If he got into any kind of trouble and the authorities found this cabin…well, still being on parole, he would probably be incarcerated again just for thinking the things he was thinking.

At that moment, he had two large maps tacked up on the kitchen wall, one of North America, the other of Western Europe and the United Kingdom. The kitchen table was covered in newspaper clippings and online articles. He’d even managed to get a person he’d met in prison to hack into a few precincts and get police write ups on a couple of incidents. That had been no walk in the park, but it had turned out to be worth the effort.

He now had information on every case Nancy Drew had solved up to that point.

He smirked; she had no idea that he’d been following her every move ever since he got out of prison. She had no idea that he knew about every case, basics about some and particulars about others, but all of them nonetheless. She had no idea at all. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she finally figured out the truth about his scheme, but by then, it would be too late.

He turned to his case study of the girl detective, and looked at the dates on the various documents. He was trying to put the cases in order, which was turning out to be more cumbersome than he had previously thought. It also didn’t help that he kept getting distracted by one particular article. He couldn’t help picking it up and rereading it a few times a day, and doing so just fueled his desire for revenge even more.

Guessing which article caused that anger was really a no-brainer.

He picked up the offending column, which had been written very soon after he was arrested, and sneered at the headline, “Rick Arlen: Back With A Vengeance.” The article went on to explain how Arlen’s contract with World Wide had been extended for at least another season of _Light of our Love_ , the chances of which had been slim because of the recent death threats against the star of the show. It then went on to say how a girl named Nancy Drew, working as an extra at the studio, had solved the case, followed by a quote from William Pappas expressing gratitude to the girl. What made Dwayne’s blood boil, however, was that the article was still just a publicity stunt for Rick. There wasn’t anything about Dwayne, what he had done, or his reasons behind his actions. The article just made Rick look like an innocent victim (“victim, my ass!” Dwayne thought bitterly to himself), and turned Nancy into the superhero.

“Please! He was a ladder climber and she was a nosy, little girl who caught a lucky break!” he snapped. He said this every time he read the article, which he knew was probably a bad idea, but he couldn’t really help himself. Why couldn’t anyone see that he was the injured party here, not Arlen, but _him_?! He grunted in frustration and threw the article back on the table before pacing back and forth across the small space to calm down. Once he had his senses back, he turned back to his paper collection and looked through everything again. He thought he had everything in the order it was supposed to be.

“I hope this is everything, anyway,” he sighed before picking up another newspaper, this one about a high school student murdered in Florida. He went over to the map, picked up a box of thumbtacks from the counter, and stuck a pin where he assumed Paseo del Mar was. The next one went directly over New York City and he couldn’t help angrily thrusting the pin into the map. The next article talked about over a million dollars’ worth of gold coins being found at a bed and breakfast in San Francisco, and that the girl who had found it, Nancy Drew, was there helping with renovations. Another pin.

Some of the cases had been harder to find than others. Most times all he had to do was type Nancy’s name into Google and the big news cases came up. This had certainly been the situation with the gold bullion hidden in a gangster’s home in Pennsylvania, the jade carving robbery and subsequent discovery of Mayan writings at the museum in Washington D.C., and Lori Girard’s celebrity train trip to Nevada (how on Earth did the Drew girl manage to secure a place on _that_?).

Others weren’t as easy to track down. He’d literally stumbled upon the events which had taken place at Blackmoor Manor. He only knew because his cousin had read Nigel Mookerjee’s history of the Penvellyn’s and one night while talking about it over dinner – or rather, the cousin talking about it and Dwayne pretending to listen – he found out that Nancy had been mentioned in the acknowledgements. He’d nearly choked on his food when he heard that, wondering if this was just a coincidence or not.

By that point though, he knew there was no such thing as a coincidence where Nancy Drew was concerned.

It was easy after that. He had borrowed the book from his cousin and clearly written in the acknowledgements was the following: “And finally, a profound thanks to Nancy Drew, without whose tenacity and sometimes odd questions, this book could not have been finished.”

“Sometimes odd questions,” Dwayne mused. “That certainly sounds like the girl, but just to be on the safe side…”

Towards the end of the book was a little section on the Penvellyn family as it was today, the patriarch of the family, Hugh; his first wife, now divorced, Renee; his current wife, Linda; his daughter, Jane, and his Aunt Leticia Drake. It didn’t give anything interesting about any of them except that Hugh was a diplomat, Renee was an opera singer and Linda was an American girl from Illinois. It was only when he looked up Hugh and Linda’s wedding that he saw that she came from the same small town that Nancy did and that sealed it. The Nancy Drew mentioned in the book was his Nancy Drew, he was almost certain, and, deciding to put his acting skills to the test, he had looked up the phone number of the bride’s mother and prepared a good story. He both needed the extra assurance that it was her, and the relaxation that came with showing off his acting skills.

“Yes, my name is Rory Jensen,” he’d said, feeling a surge of “righteous” anger at using Rick’s character’s name, but also a pang in his heart at Mattie’s last name. “I’m calling to ask you about your town’s resident detective, Miss Nancy Drew?”

“Nancy?” asked Mrs. Petrov. “The girl is a miracle worker and a saint!”

Dwayne dearly wished he could vocally disagree with her, but repressed his anger and asked, “how so?”

Very quickly, he wished he hadn’t asked. This woman apparently loved to brag about just how wonderful Nancy was.

“If this is how a family friend speaks of her, I wonder what her father says,” he said to himself.

Finally, Mrs. Petrov said what he’d been waiting for her to say. “Why, just a couple years ago, she was in England when my daughter was unwell, and while the rest of us thought Linda was an unhappy new bride, Nancy figured out what was really happening. It’s not my place to go into details, just that thanks to her, that family actually is a family now and all of them are so happy. Hugh says Jane hasn’t smiled and laughed so much since before his divorce. It makes me tear up every time I hear it, and all because of Nancy. Whenever she gets on a case, she doesn’t let go. She’s like a dog with a bone. She sees everything, finds everything and doesn’t give up until she knows the truth.”

Oh yeah, it was the same girl all right.

“May I ask what your interest is?” Mrs. Petrov asked suddenly. “Forgive me, I should have asked earlier. Do you need her for a case?”

“Yes,” he said, both the truth and a lie. “I’m putting together something of a treasure hunt and thought she might be interested in participating. Forgive me if I sound rude though, but I’d much rather discuss it with her.”

She didn’t sound surprised. “I’ll pass the message along. How can she reach you?”

“I’ll call her. Someone else I know referred her to me, he has the number. I just wanted an alternate reference first.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Mrs. Petrov conceded. “I’ll inform her of your call when she gets back to town. She’s in Ireland at the moment, I believe she’s helping with a friend’s wedding, and one of her best friends here said something about the groom having gone missing. As you can imagine, it may be a few days before she can get back to you.”

“That’s all right, it isn’t urgent,” he assured her. “I’m still working out logistics anyway, so it will be a good while before this hunt is ready.”

Mrs. Petrov had wished him luck with the preparations and hung up. That call had been less than a week ago, which had just made him work harder and faster; he had to put his plan into motion before she got swept up into another case (that seemed to happen quite frequently). He smirked gleefully as he looked up from his notes on the call and returned to the map; he hadn’t really needed that conversation, he just liked to play with people. Say things they expected to hear, give them the idea he wanted them to have without giving away too much information, it was small things like this that made him happy – it also made him proud of his acting skills, which then led him to obsess over Nancy ruining his career.

Happiness was rather short-lived with him at the moment.

As he reflected back on that conversation, he took a moment to think of the alias he’d decided on. Rory Jensen. The name had meaning for him, Rory being Rick’s character in _Light of Our Love_ and Jensen, Mattie’s last name. There was always the risk Nancy would figure out it was him, but it was a risk he was willing to take.

Mattie. He sighed as he thought of her. He missed her terribly, and his only regret from his little plot was that he knew how much it had hurt her when the truth came out. Apart from getting revenge on Rick, he wanted her to see Rick for who he really was; that way, maybe she could begin to get over him and realize who she really loved and who really loved her. He’d sent her a love letter written in French after all, but she’d never once mentioned it. He had no way of knowing if she’d truly ever felt the same, and if she had, her silly crush on Rick had prevented her from acting on any feelings for someone else. Despite the fact that Dwayne had taken Mattie out for several dates in those months before the death threats, they didn’t amount to anything, no matter how hard he tried. When his plan failed, the worst thing was seeing Mattie’s stricken face at his trial, staring at him in heartbreak, denial and betrayal, silently asking him “why?” To add insult to injury, he’d found out that a year after Nancy had put him away, Rick and Mattie had married.

“HOW COULD SHE?!” he’d screamed in rage when he saw it in the newspaper. There was a communal area in the prison which some of the inmates were allowed to spend a few minutes in a couple times a week; he mostly spent that time reading the paper. When he saw the marriage announcement, at first he couldn’t believe it. That Mattie would disregard him thus and marry that scoundrel…she knew better than that. She knew what kind of man Rick Arlen was, she knew he wouldn’t take care of her, yet she married him anyway. He knew their characters had married on the show, but to marry in real life…to say he didn’t take the news well was putting it lightly. It lead to one heck of a jealous rage, forcing the prison guards to put him in isolation for a few days until he’d calmed down.

This only fueled the desire even more and once he got out of prison, he spent some time spying on the happy couple as well as Nancy. It was disgusting how sickly sweet they looked. He’d had to force himself away from that particular bout of stalking. First things first, revenge on the Drew girl, then Rick and Mattie.

He turned back to his map, placing thumbtacks over the appropriate villages in England and Ireland. He turned back to the papers on the kitchen table and made sure he’d checked all the places on the map. New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C. the San Juan Islands, England, Paris, Hawaii, Canada, New Orleans, Venice, Ireland (“dear Lord, is there any place this girl _hasn’t_ visited?”). Finally, 19 thumbtacks were scattered all over the two maps.

He smirked; he now knew all her movements ever since she left New York. When he’d first started hounding Rick Arlen, he was surprised at how easily stalking came to him. Now, it was almost second nature, and that he was virtually stalking Nancy didn’t bother him in the slightest. He hummed a popular song by Sting under his breath, “ _Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you._ ”

While most people interpreted it as a love song, he recognized it for what it was. Unhealthy obsessions, watching and memorizing a person’s every move, staking claims on said person, what else could it be about? It was the stalker’s theme song. It was now Dwayne’s theme song. Because Nancy belonged to him all right, no one else would get to her before he did. He would ruin the girl, he would take what she loved, destroy her peace of mind, make her look over her shoulder for the danger she knew was coming, then he would strike. He would reveal himself for who he was, then she would meet her fate.

He knew exactly how he would do it too, and it was another of her previous cases that gave him the idea: the kidnapping in St. Louis. He picked up several articles that had been published during those three days, from the initial press release made by the police, to the press conference held by Simone Mueller, to the testimony by the missing girl. A statement made at the press conference had caught his attention, of course about Nancy.

“Ah, it’s a…difficult situation,” Simone had said, when asked if Nancy was on the case and available for comment. “You see, Maya is a friend of Nancy’s, and the personal connection…well, it may be clouding the detective’s judgment. She’s really on edge.”

It was a typical statement for the agent to make; after all, the sole purpose of the press conference had been to promote Brady Armstrong (seriously, just how many ladder-climbing actors _were_ there in this business, because this guy was even worse than Arlen, if that was even possible), to make him into the hero, and to discredit Nancy in the hope that she didn’t steal the spotlight. Another later statement made by the police had said that they’d allowed her to investigate the theater while they explored other leads, which was really just a euphemism for, “we didn’t listen to her because of her personal connection and she made us look like idiots.” Boy, did she make fools out of them that time. That was part of the reason he’d been so sure he’d get away with it in New York, because Rick Arlen hadn’t taken the threats seriously and the police were so blinkered, they wouldn’t even think to suspect him.

Then, the Drew girl had shown up.

But it was that reaction to the kidnapping that gave him the idea now. She had gone nearly berserk with worry, and it only got worse as the demolition drew nearer and people began cooperating with her less and less. The only two people she could trust were an activist who only really cared about the theater, and the caretaker, who actually turned out to be the kidnapper. That must have really put the girl in a tailspin.

Still, it had its advantages.

Next to the maps, he had set up another tack board where he was keeping some notes for his plan, and on it, he tacked up three pictures, one each of Nancy and her two best friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne. This plan would actually kill two birds with one stone. A volunteer who worked in the prison had told him of the legendary lost city of gold and given him El Toro’s journal, which he’d found when he worked at the Primate Research Center on Dread Isle. It was the volunteer’s theory that the journal held clues to the city’s location. The problem was that the journal was coded.

Of course it was.

However, Dwayne knew exactly who could decode it. In this way, he could have Nancy do all the work for him, all the while feeding her fear for her friends’ safety, then getting rid of her once the job was done. Then, he could find the treasure and he’d be able to use it to help woo Mattie, so in that instance, it would be three birds with one stone. He just hoped she would be receptive towards him, but he’d be ready for that if she wasn’t.

“I’ll lure the girls to Dread Isle, make sure they’re alone, then I’ll take the two friends and make sure Nancy is by herself on that island. Well, except for me, of course. I’ll create a character and play it so well, she won’t be sure whether she should suspect me or not. I’ll present her with the treasure hunt and once she’s found the map for me, the rest is roses.”

All that he had left to do was make some preliminary preparations. There was a little guest resort on Dread Isle; he’d make sure the owners, the Gibson’s were away for a week or so. Then, he’d create a fake contest for a vacation in the Bahamas, which of course, one of the girls would win, and he was leaning towards the one he felt was the most gullible of all: Bess. Naturally, she would invite Nancy and George to go with her. The difficult part would be getting even one of the other girls by herself and away from Nancy, but who knows, maybe he’d get lucky on that score. He’d have a boat ready for when he’d escape, two fake identities just to fool Nancy even more – it was perfect! She’d suspect him, then not suspect him, then suspect him again, then not. Pretty soon, she’d be going around in circles so much, she wouldn’t know which way was up or down! He just had to make sure he instilled the necessary fear. What really triggered her behavior in St. Louis had been the fact that she’d had a fixed 72 hours to find Maya before the theater she was hidden in would be demolished. It would probably help if he gave her a deadline to find her friends in this case also, but on the other hand, he wondered if it would be even more fun to just make her wonder if he would cut off the search on his own. On the one hand, it would be fun to see her lose control and slowly go berserk with worry, but on the other hand, she needed to keep her wits about her so that she could find the treasure map for him. Hmm…he’d have to come back to that later.

He smirked yet again. Everything was coming together exactly as he wanted. Oh yes, he’d get her, then he’d kill Rick and get his Mattie back. Nothing would stop him this time.

He turned to look at the picture of Nancy and ran a finger slowly down the girl’s cheek. To anyone else, it might’ve looked like he was looking at a picture of a sweetheart and wishing it was her real face he was caressing instead of an image. In reality, it was about the creepiest thing he could possibly do. His fingers twitched for a moment, as if wanting to wrap around the girl’s throat, as they had almost done in New York. The song ran through his head again and he sneered at the picture, knowing just how deadly accurate the lyrics were, even more so once they arrived in the Bahamas.

“I’ll be watching you,” he whispered to the picture, before turning back to his laptop to put his plan into action.

**Author's Note:**

> Is that a stalker or what? This story ended up centered more around Stay Tuned for Danger than I originally intended, mostly because I couldn't help writing in the sections about Mattie and Dwayne. That was an avenue I really think they could've fleshed out more with that game. I mean, Dwayne and Mattie were dating after she broke up with Rick, but we know that she still likes Rick, so that would've caused some tension. But that adds a facet to Dwayne's character that we don't really see, and I'd like to have seen. But I make allowances, that was only the second game and they were still testing the waters. Nancy gets a lot more persistent in later games; she's a bit more quiet and observant in the earlier ones.
> 
> It was a spur of the moment decision to bring in The Final Scene the way I did, but then, I remembered a discussion I had with The Madmadam about this very topic. We both noticed how Nancy seemed more panicked over Maya's disappearance than she did over Bess, even though Bess is a closer friend. She and I have our theory; if anyone else wants to share theirs, comment below. In the meantime, let's go watch Arglefumph's 2020 Mega Marathon to help get through this pandemic.


End file.
